A facile and total water-soluble fluorescent organic nanoparticles-based sensor for Hg²⁺ detection and its...

In this study, a novel FONs-based sensor P-M(w) was synthesized using 1-Pyrenecarboxaldehyde and L-methionine through facile hydrothermal strategy. The fluorescence emission peaks of the acquired P-M(w) would show specific changes after the addition of Hg²⁺ due to interfering the PET process and inducing nano-structure conformational rigidification of P-M(w). Notably, the water-soluble FONs-based sensor was firstly used to detect Hg²⁺ in tea samples providing a new material choice for the fluorescence sensor construction of metal ion detection. Besides, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of Hg²⁺ could be carried out with P-M (w) at a very low concentration (1 μg/mL) meaning that the acquired P-M(w) synthesized by few grams of reactants may satisfy the detection of approximate fifty thousand samples.